


Like Lace

by NPennyworth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard (Marvel), BAMF Frigga (Marvel), Bechdel Test Pass, Canonical Character Death, Female Friendship, Frigga Deserves Better, Gen, In Which I May Still Be Bitter Over This Character Death, Jane Foster Loves Science, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-25 07:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NPennyworth/pseuds/NPennyworth
Summary: Sometimes the most beautiful things are also the most easily destroyed.





	Like Lace

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing with my adventures in writing gen fic that absolutely nobody asked for, have a Jane and Frigga friendship fic!  
> *ignores the fandom burning down around me over Infinity War*  
> If you're reading Only Flesh and Bone I promise that update is coming soon, it's just fighting me. Hopefully by posting this I'll get the inspiration I need!

Frigga was delicate. Jane supposed that she wasn’t in the best position for saying things like that when she was the one fainting everywhere at the moment, but everything about Frigga seemed fragile. Her skin was pale and her hair was golden, and her steps were even and measured. She was always flanked by guards, and Thor took her slim hand as carefully as one might hold a piece of glass.

  
She did seem queenly, though. She had the dresses and robes, and even her slippers were lined with gold. There was something in the tilt of her head and the glint of her eyes that showed Frigga wore authority like a second skin.

  
Jane bowed and called her “Your Majesty” and thought nothing more of it, deciding to spend more of her time studying the seemingly impossible architecture and science of Asgard. She was a scientist, and Frigga was a queen. They were nothing alike.

* * *

It took Jane a moment to remember where she was when she woke up, and then another moment to remember why she was here. She yawned hugely and slid out of the bed, mourning the loss of the silk sheets and the softest mattress she had ever felt in her life as she began to look around for her clothes. She was currently wearing a light shift that one of the maids had given her to sleep in and was not looking forward to putting on her old, dirty jeans and tshirt but didn’t really see an alternative.

  
There was a soft knock at her door and Jane found a robe lying over the foot of her bed, quickly shrugging it on before she opened the door. To her surprise Frigga was standing there, flanked by her ever present guards and holding a bundle of cloth in her hands. Jane managed to keep herself from stepping back in surprise and instead smiled.

  
“Your Majesty,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  
“I came to make sure that you are settling in,” she said, smoothly stepping into her room and closing the doors behind her, the guards taking up posts outside. “How are you liking Asgard?”

  
“It’s fascinating,” Jane responded thoughtlessly, still staring at the monarch who was now laying out the cloth she had been carrying on Jane’s bed. Cloth that was actually a rather beautiful, if archaic, looking dress. “I mean… it’s very beautiful.”

  
“Of course,” Frigga said, gracefully inclining her head. “But I imagine that you are not interested in mere beauty.” Jane blinked owlishly at her and Frigga’s smile softened. “Thor has informed me that you are a learned scholar of Midgard.”  
“Ah, yes,” Jane said with a nod. “A Doctor. Which… doesn’t mean anything to you but it’s a title of… scholarly learning.”

  
“So you are interested not in how Asgard looks but how it works,” Frigga said. “Has Thor taken you to the observatory yet?”

  
“You have an observatory?” Jane asks, the words out of her mouth before she can process them. “I mean, no, Your Majesty. He hasn’t.”

  
“Then I must apologize for his behaviour, Doctor Foster,” Frigga said, her tongue gliding over Doctor with only the smallest stumble on the unfamiliar syllables. “I tried to raise him to be better, but as I’m sure you know sometimes it takes a while for Thor to learn.” Jane stared at her in bewilderment, managing to stifle her laugh at that. Frigga’s smile had never wavered throughout their entire conversation and yet had gone through several different iterations of softness, amusement, and encouragement.

  
“After you are dressed and have some breakfast I would be able to take you on a tour of the observatory and our halls of learning,” Frigga offered, gesturing to the dress on the bed which Jane realised had been brought for her. The Queen of friggin’ Asgard had picked out a dress for her.

  
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” she scrambled to say but Frigga was already holding up one hand, silencing her protests.

  
“It is no imposition,” she said. “I look forward to spending time with you, Doctor Foster.” With that she swept out of the room, leaving Jane standing there staring after her with her mouth open wondering what in Valhalla had just happened.

* * *

Frigga was graceful. Every movement, every word of hers was suffused with a sort of elegance that Jane couldn’t possibly hope to match, and she at first felt clumsy in comparison following her light footsteps through the halls of Asgard.  
There was enough to see here that Jane could have been busy for a century and Frigga took her through all of it, answering questions and introducing her to the various doctors and “magicians” they encountered. Frigga had a smile and kind word for every one, and not once did she make Jane feel stupid or slow for asking something that made all the other Asgardians smile and look at each other as if to say what an adorable human this is.

  
Frigga had a soft voice that wove together sentences made of words that glittered and shone, and when she wanted them to her words grew sharp and laced with barbs, although her insults were always subtle enough that it took the victim a moment to realise he had been insulted. And when he turned, red faced, to confront her his confidence would waver, met with the unruffled smile of a Queen who never stumbled or misspoke, a Queen that glided through the halls and whose movements were almost like a dance that only she knew the steps to.

  
Jane hid her smirk as they left behind the stuttering and blushing Asgardians, still labouring to pinpoint exactly when Frigga had stolen their poisoned insults away from Jane and redirected them to new targets. When they were alone both women shared small smiles and Frigga confided that she too had once been an outsider here, had also had to navigate a battlefield made of pointed glances and carefully spun lies, and Jane told stories of academia and the endless defense against those who wanted to devalue her work and write her off as a crackpot in the desert. To her surprise, they weren’t all that different.

* * *

The Aether pulsed under Jane’s skin when they heard the alarm sound, a horn blowing somewhere in the distance that Jane would have paid no attention to if it weren’t for the way Frigga stiffened and her guards half drew their swords.  
“Come with me,” she said, grabbing hold of Jane’s arm and ushering down the hall quickly, sending her guards away with a flick of her hand. Jane could feel the instant change in atmosphere, wrongness radiating from the worry in Frigga’s eyes to the feel of the ground shaking from the vibration of thousands of booted feet marching through the palace. There was a loud boom and the ground shook, and Frigga stopped and braced herself against a column until the shaking stopped.

  
Jane let out an involuntary cry of discomfort as the Aether surged up in her again, the red mist curling slightly above her skin before sinking back down inside her. It felt a little like ice water coursing over her bones, making her shiver and leaving a trail of needle-like pain behind it. The world tilted and wobbled for a moment and Frigga caught her, holding her steady until the feeling passed.

  
“I’m sorry,” Jane said as soon as she could stand, and Frigga shook her head.

  
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said. “You do not realise the power of what lies inside you, and that the marrow has not been torn from your bones is a testament to your strength. Now come.”

  
Jane was never the strong one. Thor was strong, with all the muscles and the hammer and the ability to bench press a truck if he so desired. Erik was strong, since he could throw a decent enough punch and had decked enough drunks at the bar that both she and Darcy had to intervene to keep him away from that particular venue. Heck, even Darcy was stronger than Jane, since Darcy was never the one who struggled to open a pickle jar or lift a piece of equipment into the van. Jane was weak and flabby, something borne of her habit of spending long hours sitting in front of computers with only her fingers and eyes moving, and it was a trait that she had ever since she’d set new records for last place during the beep test back in Phys Ed.

  
Nobody had ever called Jane strong, and yet Frigga said it like it was an indisputable fact and Jane didn’t feel quite up to arguing as she was currently being dragged through several hallways and very much trying to not think about what sounded like the clash of weapons coming from the halls behind them.

  
“Are they looking for me?” she managed to ask when Frigga finally stopped, the two of them standing in a lovely room with silk curtains and pillars and a rather unnecessary but nonetheless beautiful water feature in the centre.

  
“Most likely,” Frigga said. “But I will keep you safe.” With a single fluid movement Frigga drew a sword from a sheath hidden somewhere in her dress, and Jane wondered how she missed seeing something so sharp among all Frigga’s softness.

  
“Can we escape?” Jane asked, looking around for something to take her to the Bifrost and away from the attackers and Frigga shook her head.

  
“There’s no time. You need to hide.” Frigga held out her hands and light appeared between them, and although Jane’s eyes widened in wonder Frigga’s expression remained serious as she created a second Jane, an identical duplicate that stood and looked about fearfully. Frigga indicated a curtain off to the side of the room and Jane obediently ran behind it, holding her breath and feeling like they were playing an absurd version of hide and seek.

  
Then a monster crashed into the room and she only felt like a coward as she watched Frigga fight, the sword in her hand moving as fluidly and gracefully as everything else Frigga did. It was like a deadly dance and there was no doubt that Frigga was the one leading, in control up until the second monster entered the room and slit her throat.

* * *

Frigga was beautiful. Jane was distantly aware of what a mess she must look like, eyes red and skin blotchy from crying, looking small and diminished and human standing next to gods. By contrast Frigga looked almost ethereal, her eyes closed and hair fanning out around her, dress glittering in the light of a thousand lanterns as her funeral barge was pushed away from the shore.

  
Jane had heard it said that the dead looked a little like they were just sleeping and she supposed it was true enough, as long as you stayed at a distance. If you got any closer you would notice the stillness of a body that was no longer breathing, the eerie quiet of a heart that no longer beat, the absence of the undefinable essence that animated a person.

  
For a moment Jane felt guilty, this is all my fault, if I hadn’t been dating Thor she wouldn’t have died, but then she knew with sudden certainty that Frigga was too intelligent to have died for Jane simply because of her relationship with Thor, and she definitely wasn’t so petty that she would have given Jane up if she and Thor had broken up. Thor had nothing to do with her decision; a Queen wouldn’t have sacrificed herself for anything more or less than the greater good.  
Odin had said a few words, and Thor had started to give a speech but choked up in the middle of it. Jane wanted to comfort him but was unable to move, frozen staring at Frigga’s still face and wondering what death felt like to immortals, wondering if it was better or worse to live for centuries before dying.

  
Soon they would have to continue on their quest; Jane could feel the Aether twisting and curling inside her, knew that the Dark Elves would not stop at one attack despite the cost. After all, Asgard had lost much more. But for now Jane was still and watched as Frigga dissolved into stardust and thought of a world where Frigga would be standing beside her husband and son watching the barges drift away. Frigga would have hated that world because there still would have been death, and any lives lost are still too many.

  
Frigga was delicate and graceful and beautiful, and none of that stopped her from being brave and strong and selfless. She’d protected her family and home to her last breath, and although Jane wasn’t sure if she could follow her example she would surely try.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos give writers life!  
> If you'd like to talk to me about Frigga or Jane or anything, really, I'm @theshadowedqueen82 on tumblr!


End file.
